


Shield Me

by mrs_d



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alternate Universe - No Powers, F/M, Meet-Cute, Pre-Serum Steve Rogers, SUPER CHEESY
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-18
Updated: 2018-04-18
Packaged: 2019-04-24 13:10:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,138
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14356188
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mrs_d/pseuds/mrs_d
Summary: On a rainy day in New York, a small blonde man leaps in front of Sharon to save her from being splashed by a puddle. The rest, as they say, is history.





	Shield Me

Sharon has no idea why the small blonde man just did that.

“I have no idea why I just did that,” the small blonde man says.

Sharon spits — _very ladylike,_ she thinks sarcastically — to clear the bit of muddy water that’s on her lips, and wipes her mouth as she looks down at herself. Her dress and raincoat are more or less clean, just a few splatters, and her shoes are somehow spotless and dry. _Could be worse,_ she thinks.

“Are you okay?” asks the small blonde man.

He’s worse. The splash he took in her place has peppered him with mud from head to toes; his formerly white t-shirt is clinging to his chest, and his blue hoodie is almost black from the water that’s coated him. He’s about the same height as Sharon, maybe even a little shorter, which she supposes would explain why he got the worst of the puddle when he stepped in front of her.

He takes off his mud-smeared glasses and starts digging in his hoodie. Sharon guesses what he’s after and pulls a tissue from her jacket pocket.

“Here,” she says, offering it. “It’s not used, I promise,” she adds.

“At this point, I’d take it even if it was,” the blonde man says wryly. “Oh, watch out,” he says suddenly, stepping back as the light changes, and more cars approach the puddle that started all this mess.

He nods over Sharon’s shoulder, and she moves back, too, only bumping into one person as she does. The sidewalks aren’t very busy today, what with the weather, but she still catches some disgruntled looks from people as they pass. Or maybe New Yorkers always just look disgruntled.

Sharon and the blonde man duck under an awning, out of the rain, and he cleans his glasses before putting them back on. “That’s better,” he says.

He offers her the tissue back, his eyebrows raised skeptically, and Sharon makes a polite _No, you keep it_ gesture. The man chuckles, tucks the tissue into one of his pockets. Where the fabric of his clothes moves, Sharon can see the edges of tattoos — at his wrist, maybe, and on his clavicle, the ink just barely peeking out from under the collar of his shirt.

“Are you sure you’re okay?” he asks, and Sharon realizes with a start that she’d been staring.

“Yeah,” she says quickly. “Yeah, I’m fine. Thank you,” she adds.

The blonde man chuckles again, ducking his head. Along with his fantastic cheekbones, Sharon notices he has a small hearing aid in his left ear.

“You might want to look in a mirror before you thank me too much,” he says ruefully. He looks up, points at the top of her head and twirls his finger strangely. “You kinda got some— well, there’s a bit of—”

“Mud?” Sharon guesses. She raises one hand, feels, and groans. All of the slime of a New York gutter is in her hair, it seems. Her fingers close on something soggy, and she makes a face as she pulls away a dead leaf and flicks it to the ground. “Perfect,” she mutters.

It figures that her second week in New York would end with rain and mud. It hasn’t exactly been easy to settle in; more often than not, she’s thought about giving up and going back to London, where she’s been for four years, staying with family and going to school. Being back in the States is weird, and she’s really not buying New York’s propaganda that it’s the greatest city in the world.

“Sorry,” says the blonde man, breaking into her thoughts. “I tried to— that guy was an asshole,” he interrupts himself.

Sharon laughs, both at the incident and at his reaction. “I’m sure it was an accident.”

“I’m not,” says the blonde man, and he’s surprisingly hyped up, his blue eyes hard behind his glasses. “Who in the hell speeds through a gutter like that when there’s clearly people walking here?”

Unbidden, all the New York stereotypes that Aunt Peggy warned her about rush through Sharon’s mind. Aunt Ange had laughed and told her to ignore Aunt Peg, but, now that she’s here, she has to wonder if there was some truth to it after all.

“Anyway,” the blonde man sighs. “I hope you weren’t on your way somewhere important.”

“Well, actually,” Sharon begins. She had been on her way to a first date, some lunkhead that Maria found for her online. They’d talked some, and he seemed okay, if dull. No major red flags, really, so Sharon agreed to meet him for coffee.

Now, though, that hardly seems important. “No,” she concludes. “I was just out and about.”

“Oh,” says the blonde man with a nod, though he eyes her fancy outfit a little suspiciously.

“Good thing, too,” Sharon adds, trying to be funny, though she fears it’s just awkward. “I probably look terrible now, huh?”

“Not at all,” the blonde man replies, sounding surprised but sincere.

They stare at one another for a second, then Sharon takes the leap. “Can I buy you a coffee?” she asks. “To thank you?”

The blonde man tilts his head, clearly caught off-guard. “Uh,” he says.

 _Shit, shit, shit,_ Sharon thinks. She totally shouldn’t have done that. “Unless,” she hurries to add, to give him an out if he needs it. “Unless _you_ were on your way somewhere important.”

“No,” he says, but it’s hesitant. He looks down the street, and then shakes his head. “No,” he says more certainly. “It can wait.”

And then, for the first time since he jumped in front of that wall of water and mud for her, he smiles at her, full and bright and very pretty.

“I’m Sharon,” Sharon manages to say, sticking out her hand to shake his.

He has a firm grip, a steady hand, and definitely at least one sleeve of tattoos. “Steve,” he says, still smiling. “So, where do you want to go? I think there’s a Starbucks just down the—”

“No,” Sharon interrupts sharply — that was where she was supposed to meet Brock, she can’t go in there. “I mean— I’m tired of Starbucks,” she explains, because Steve looked pretty startled at her outburst. “And I just moved to Brooklyn, so— maybe there’s somewhere better?”

“Yeah,” Steve agrees enthusiastically. “Yeah, there’s lots of better places than Starbucks,” he scoffs, and if he were anyone else, she’d be annoyed at his hipster, know-it-all tone. “Come on, let me show you around.”

He offers her his arm in a cheesy, overplayed gesture, but Sharon laughs and takes it. He turns them smoothly and steers them into the flow of foot traffic, keeping her on the inside of the sidewalk like an old-fashioned gentleman, and Sharon thinks that maybe New York is growing on her after all. 


End file.
